What does it take to wake up America to the dangers of obesity? Otherwise loving and often overly protective parents seen oblivious to the problem. Maybe because at least some of these parents fall into the obese – or at least overweight – category themselves?
Well there’s now a major study, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, that tracked a large group of American Indian children for an average of 24 years. The findings? That obesity, pre-diabetes (glucose intolerance) and hypertension in childhood were strongly associated with increased rates of premature death. Specifically – the heaviest kids were more than twice as likely as the thinnest ones to die before they reached 55. That’s 15 to 20 years below average American life expectancy. And typically, say the experts, American Indians are about a decade ahead of other Americans in terms of obesity numbers. Right now nearly a third of all American children are either overweight or obese. You can see where this is going….
There’s never been a good excuse for ignoring obesity. But at least if you’re an adult – you’re making your own, presumably desired, decisions. That’s certainly not true for children. And millions of kids are being doomed to an early death simply because their parents, extended families and school teachers – those most responsible for protecting and directing them – are not doing their jobs.
Never mind the impact on our already fractured health care system. Think of the impact on a kid’s life. Years of taking pills or struggling with insulin shots. Heart attacks that can ruin lives even if they don’t kill. Cancer with all its implications. Strokes.
Do you really want the worst for your child instead of the best?
Habits instilled in childhood last a lifetime. It’s a lot harder to think thin for the first time when you’re 40 than when you’re 10. Healthy food in reasonable portions combined with daily exercise is not exactly a recipe for purgatory. In fact the exercise is called play when you’re a kid. Remember?
So parents and teachers – belly away from the food bar and invest a little healthy living in your kids’ future. And maybe in the process those of you who are making bad decisions about your own lives – will add a few good years onto them.
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
A Tear in Life's Fabric
Something is happening. Maybe it happens to everyone eventually. It’s as if there’s a tear in the fabric of life, a break in the force field that holds us to this planet.
My friends, my colleagues, the people who have defined my life for so many years – they’re disappearing. One by one – dropping off like the leaves in the early part of fall. And you know what happens as fall deepens. The leaves become a blizzard. A blizzard of death.
Death. No amount of reasoning about nature and the way it is can make me fear that word any less. And in the past few weeks death seems to be stalking the streets I know, scooping up not only old people whose lives had shriveled up like their bodies – but much younger people who had everything to live for.
My friend and colleague Roger E. Hernandez died over the weekend. He was 53. Chalk up another one for the big C. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003847809
It’s not that I saw Roger or his wife Dianne every day. Or even every year. They are my neighbors, living with their children just one town over. The people you keep saying you must invite over to catch up – as time speeds up and runs off the clock. How many more friends and colleagues and family members are in that category. How many more people will be gone before I get around to saying hello?
Roger was a funny, nice, straightforward guy. Not someone you would easily forget. When I first met him he was an assignment editor at the TV station I went to work for - more than 20 years ago. He was old enough when he left Cuba with his parents to remember how it was – and to be a lifelong foe of Castro. The stuff of many good - shall we say - discussions. We would laugh at Roger’s slight accent; we could never understand his directions over the noisy police-type radios we all used then to communicate with the “desk” when we were out on a story. Roger, being Roger, would laugh as well. Sometimes.
We became a family at that TV station. Dianne and Roger moved on and got married. Some of us also moved on. But the family bond has held. We used to come together at odd times to see photos of babies just born or talk about new jobs - or old ones. And now – a much older family – we are coming together too often to cry instead of laugh. At wakes and funerals and memorial services.
Like Roger’s.
If he was looking down on us, he might have been surprised at how many people knew him, were shocked at his death and already missed him. Perhaps they too felt a little break in the force field, a tear in the fabric.
Because when there’s a tear here – and a break there – one day the force field disintegrates. The fabric shreds. And not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men (and women) can put Humpty Dumpty together again.
My friends, my colleagues, the people who have defined my life for so many years – they’re disappearing. One by one – dropping off like the leaves in the early part of fall. And you know what happens as fall deepens. The leaves become a blizzard. A blizzard of death.
Death. No amount of reasoning about nature and the way it is can make me fear that word any less. And in the past few weeks death seems to be stalking the streets I know, scooping up not only old people whose lives had shriveled up like their bodies – but much younger people who had everything to live for.
My friend and colleague Roger E. Hernandez died over the weekend. He was 53. Chalk up another one for the big C. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003847809
It’s not that I saw Roger or his wife Dianne every day. Or even every year. They are my neighbors, living with their children just one town over. The people you keep saying you must invite over to catch up – as time speeds up and runs off the clock. How many more friends and colleagues and family members are in that category. How many more people will be gone before I get around to saying hello?
Roger was a funny, nice, straightforward guy. Not someone you would easily forget. When I first met him he was an assignment editor at the TV station I went to work for - more than 20 years ago. He was old enough when he left Cuba with his parents to remember how it was – and to be a lifelong foe of Castro. The stuff of many good - shall we say - discussions. We would laugh at Roger’s slight accent; we could never understand his directions over the noisy police-type radios we all used then to communicate with the “desk” when we were out on a story. Roger, being Roger, would laugh as well. Sometimes.
We became a family at that TV station. Dianne and Roger moved on and got married. Some of us also moved on. But the family bond has held. We used to come together at odd times to see photos of babies just born or talk about new jobs - or old ones. And now – a much older family – we are coming together too often to cry instead of laugh. At wakes and funerals and memorial services.
Like Roger’s.
If he was looking down on us, he might have been surprised at how many people knew him, were shocked at his death and already missed him. Perhaps they too felt a little break in the force field, a tear in the fabric.
Because when there’s a tear here – and a break there – one day the force field disintegrates. The fabric shreds. And not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men (and women) can put Humpty Dumpty together again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
